The monthly meeting of the Perth city council begins with a prayer, urging God to give its eight councillors and beleaguered lord mayor the “wisdom to understand its present needs, foresight to anticipate its future growth, and grace to serve our fellow citizens with integrity and selfless devotion”.
At the meeting on 9 May that integrity was being questioned.
The state administrative tribunal had that day handed down its judgment on a long-running investigation into the lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi’s travel expenses and found her guilty of 45 breaches of the Local Government Act 1995.
The offences related to failing to properly disclose airfares, accommodation, and other travel expenses paid for by outside interests, dated between her election as mayor in 2007 and a Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) investigation into misconduct in 2015.
Fifteen of the breaches related to travel and accommodation paid for by the Australian Press Council, of which Scaffidi was a member between 2003 and 2012. The expenses were directly related to press council meetings but Scaffidi was still required to declare them, which she did not.
By midday both the state premier, Mark McGowan, and the opposition leader, Mike Nahan, had called on Scaffidi to resign, saying her position had become “untenable”. She refused.
She retained the tentative backing of six of her eight fellow councillors, who said they would wait until the tribunal had decided on a penalty before passing judgment on her.
That penalty was due to be handed down on Tuesday but has been put off until at least June, when two former chief executives of the City of Perth and one manager will be summoned to give evidence, at the request of Scaffidi’s lawyers.
The chief executive of the local government department, who initiated the investigation into Scaffidi’s travel expenses, has sought a six-month suspension but has not publicly ruled out seeking her dismissal.
The WA local government minister, David Templeman, said she should resign.
“The situation has become completely farcical – it is clear that the lord mayor has been found in serious breach and it is the government’s view that the only real option is to resign,” he told Guardian Australia.
“The findings by the state administrative tribunal are irrefutable and damning … If the lord mayor was a member of state parliament she would have been stood down following the CCC’s initial report in 2015.”
The CCC investigation found that Scaffidi had “signally failed in her duties as lord mayor” and committed serious misconduct by failing to declare three costly gifts, including a US$36,000 trip to the 2008 Beijing Olympics funded by BHP Billiton.
The damning finding prompted the department to open an investigation into her disclosure of travel and gifts received in office, leading to the tribunal ruling.
Neither the CCC report nor the tribunal finding found any suggestion her behaviour had been corrupt, a ruling Scaffidi said was “more important to me than ANY number of findings”.
But nor did either body accept her argument that she either did not know the disclosure rules, “did not turn her mind to it” or that gifts of travel did not need to be declared because they related directly to her work as mayor.
“Ms Scaffidi’s submission would mean that any disposition of property or conferral of a financial benefit on Ms Scaffidi when she is acting in an official capacity would not be covered,” the tribunal judgment said.
“If that proposition be right, then a lord mayor could receive, for example, a gold Rolex without having to declare the gift because the gift was made to her in her official capacity. Such a construction … would completely gut the section [of the Local Government Act] of any meaning. It would entirely defeat the purpose of the Local Government Act in ensuring accountability.”
The tribunal found Scaffidi had “actively sought third-party reimbursement” in some cases, citing a series of emails dating back to 2008 in which she inquired about the travel and accommodation being offered.
In an email to a City of Perth staff member dated September 2010, about a $6,000 trip to Seoul for the World Design Conference she would take that December, she wrote: “Hope hotel 5 star! Let them know I don’t live in [sic] trash – don’t stay in it.”
In July 2011, Scaffidi emailed the same aide about an upcoming trip to the Japan Association for Medical Informatics conference in Kagoshima, for which she had already been offered business class return flights. The email inquired whether the offer extended to her husband: “Obviously it is not as attractive if Joe has to pay airfare!”
The flights cost more than $15,000 and Scaffidi was also offered a $1,200 speaker’s fee, paid to the council and reimbursed to Scaffidi to cover expenses for the trip. It also included accommodation worth more than $200, meaning it had to be disclosed under the act.
In an email to Scaffidi informing her that the council could accept the speaker’s fee on her behalf, the then chief executive, Frank Edwards, said: “The travel and expenses would need to be declared on the next annual return under ‘travel funded by others’ section.”
Scaffidi replied: “Got it and agree.”
Despite the risk of severe penalty, widespread political criticism and two investigations returning adverse findings, Scaffidi has maintained she acted in the best interests of Perth.
The sustained failure to disclose six years’ worth of international flights and accommodation in five-star hotels was “inadvertent” and an “error of paperwork” she said in a statement last week.
She continued that theme in the council chamber that night, describing the 45 offences as an oversight that paled in comparison to the promotion and advocacy of Perth those non-disclosed flights facilitated.
“If this is how we treat those people who serve their city with all the heart and passion that I have, I feel really sad for the future of this city and the future of local government,” she said.
Addressing the ABC journalist Nicolas Perpitch, who had written into public question time asking if she intended to resign, Scaffidi said her resignation “need not be sought by anybody if they would bother to read the judgment and understand that the work was done in the line of duty”.
“I accept fully the inadvertent non-disclosures I made and I am prepared to take any penalty … But let the processes take their course,” she said. “And with respect – not necessarily to those in the room – the trial by media has been relentless and if this is again how you treat due legal process, that is just simply unacceptable in the modern society we live in today.”
The interference from both sides of politics had been “absolutely stultifying”, she said.
Until last week Scaffidi had maintained the backing of the Liberal party, and had returned that favour in the March state election, allowing Liberal party billboards to hang free of charge from her city-centre building.
In a statement, Nahan thanked Scaffidi and praised her impressive record, but said that record “does not preclude the lord mayor from complying with her obligations under the Local Government Act”.
McGowan was less conciliatory, saying Scaffidi “needs to step down, in her own interests, in the interests of the city of Perth, and in the interests of the people of WA”.
But Scaffidi has said she will not resign unless she is asked to do so by the tribunal, or forced to do so by her fellow councillors.
“As I said to them, walking for me is not an option right now,” she said. “I’ll let the [tribunal] decide … let them decide my fate and I will take and deal with that when I need to.”
with AAP
